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The Future of Work & Education

MounTAIN EXPERIENCE & MAN's SEARCH FOR MEANING

12/11/2020

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Mountain Experience & Man’s Search for Meaning
All over the world, people, especially young people, suffer from a feeling of senselessness. They have the means to live, but they lack a purpose in life for which it makes sense to live for. John Glenn, the American astronaut, once said: Ideals are the very stuff of survival. Without the focus on ideals, human beings cannot survive; but that creates a tension, and one has to be able to fight, one has to be able to wait, in a word, a so called frustration-tolerance is required; and such a tolerance needs training.
But today's upbringing, which is mainly concerned with minimizing tension, brings you up to a level of frustration intolerance, a kind of psychological immune deficiency, if I may say so. Young people are then unable to "put away" frustrations; they are unable to wait for their wishes to be fulfilled, they are unable to forego something they do not yet have, or even to sacrifice something they already have. In their frustration-intolerance, young people are no longer able to avert avoidable suffering and endure inescapable suffering, let alone to show pity for someone else - they only know pity for themselves.

But man knows how to help himself - he has always known it. And it was the poet Holderlin who once addressed this fact in beautiful words: Where there is danger, there is also something that can save us from danger. And how does man face the danger of a tendency towards pampering and softening, which is evoked by a technologically perfected industrial society and a consumer society geared towards the total satisfaction of needs?

Let's take a look at everyday life: Today's people don't actually have to walk anymore. One just gets into his car and - drives. Let alone that one has to run. But what is happening? Man invents jogging. Or: Today's people do not need to climb, not even climb stairs. And what happens? One thinks about hiking in the mountains and climbing to their very summit. In a word, man - the naked monkey - imitates his ancestors, who had to climb trees to get food or flee from enemies - all things that are necessary for the monkeys, but no longer for him.

But that’s what mountaineering is about: the biologically under-challenged man arranges for himself voluntarily, artificially and deliberately necessities of a higher kind, in that he freely demands something from himself, denies something, renounces something. In the midst of prosperity, he a situation of deprivation; In the middle of an affluent society, he begins to pile up islands of asceticism, so to speak - and this is exactly where I see the function, not to say the mission, of sport in general and alpinism in particular: They are the modern, secular form of asceticism.

Viktor E. Frankl in Mountain Experience & Man's Search for Meaning


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Nature JouRNAL CHALLENGE

11/26/2020

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The 2nd wave of the corona pandemic has once again shown that our industrial education systems need a structural overhaul. That overhaul might take some more time, but we can use the cracks in the system to make transformation easier.

Join us in China, Europe and wherever you are located to tinker on how to make use of modern technologies to engage children (and those who never have never stopped to be one :) with nature.

We invite you and the children in your reach to participate in our Nature Journal Challenge starting from Nov 30 until Dec 6: https://www.greensteps.me/library/green-steps-global-nature-education-challenge.php

What does the rather enlightened press write about the state of education:

  • Outdoor time has always been healthy for kids, but that’s especially the case now: One study found that the odds of catching the coronavirus are nearly 20 times higher indoors than outdoors. Though it isn’t free of problems, learning outside might be the only way to provide parents with a break, kids with an adequate education, and teachers with protection from the coronavirus. [The Atlantic]
  • As countries grapple with how and when to restore students to classrooms, a growing number of schools have embraced outdoor learning — especially in the highly regarded Nordic education systems, where the model had already begun to gain momentum. […] Some countries, including Germany, have a tradition of outdoor preschools and kindergartens, which have begun to catch on in the United States as well. The pandemic may drive more countries to experiment with the model for older students. [Washington Post]

Educator and philosopher Zachary Stein summarizes the situation from a meta-perspective:

Let us not forget that the modern sciences of learning, which are ignored in the design of most educational technologies, tell us that learning is optimized when it involves sustained interpersonal relationships, emotional connection, embodiment, and dynamically interactive hands-on experiences. Based on the best of what we know about the dynamics of learning, educational technologies should be bringing people together away from screens–not isolating individuals alone in front of screens. Technologies ought to help us customize learning and provide universal access to information through useful, well organized, and curated content. They should not be the primary focus of attention or main source of interaction and instruction. [What is Emerging]

Lets tinker together on a solution.

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ZDENEK MILER's VISION of the FUTURE

11/7/2020

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Czech animator Zdeněk Miler foresaw already in the 70s in his famous cartoon Kretek - The Mole how excessive technology will unfold. A silent animation with unexpected depth considering the current state of the world: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONJaqdMxBIc
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On Pandemics, PIGS & Our CHildren

11/2/2020

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Many brains are in fear or flight mode these days or raging in anger, because they don't agree with the measures our political systems have imposed on our daily lives.

If the amygdala fires, human beings, in particular politicians, tend to make short term decisions. Here are some thoughts to calm down our minds and focus on a clear light at the end of this tunnel.
201101_on_covid.pdf
File Size: 13066 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

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Migration in EUrope

10/6/2020

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This blog started a few years ago with having physical and metaphysical migration in mind. After 20 years abroad, I have settled were I hail from. Almost.

Being foreign or local is an attitude. One can strive to be local. One can be apathetic towards a cultural environment.

As the world changes and as we march into a more serious climate crisis, we need to accept that strange people turn into our neighbors or we ourselves have to seek a new home far away from where we come from.

This short ARTE documentary is a brilliant summary of Europe's recent migration history. Highly recommended.
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